


Ineffable

by trekkiepirate



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Good omens AU!, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 17:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekkiepirate/pseuds/trekkiepirate
Summary: A glimpse through the years with Quentin, an Angel, and Eliot, a Demon. This takes most of its settings and general through line from the first 30 minutes of the third episode of Good Omens, aka a Cold Open In Which Our MCs Fall In Love.





	Ineffable

**Author's Note:**

> While I took a lot of the places and plot from Good Omens, I changed dialogue because one, plagarism, and two, I can't hear Eliot and Quentin saying some of the things Aziraphale and Crowley do.

Eliot slammed into the tavern and onto a stool. "Strongest stuff you got." The barmaid quoted a price and Eliot miracled the two coins to pay it.

Eel- no, sorry, um, Eliot now, right?" Stammered a voice to his right.

Even through the darkened shades on his face, Eliot knew who was there. "Angel."

"Quentin," said the celestial being in question.

"I've known you ssssince the Garden of Eden," Eliot said, hissing the s like the snake in the garden he had been then. "I remember your name."

Quentin grinned, a remarkable difference to the last two times they'd run into each other. Granted Noah's flood and Jesus' crucifixion were not happy events by any means. Not even to a demon like Eliot.

"How have you been?" Quentin asked, sliding himself onto the stool next to Eliot. "Still a demon?"

"Dumb question. Of course I'm still a demon; what else would I be? A bunny rabbit?" Eliot snapped, regretting it when the angel seemed cowed. He sighed. "I nipped in for a quick temptation and I thought I'd check out Polonious' new restaurant. Apparently the oysters are sinfully delicious."

"I've never eaten an oyster," Quentin mused. "I'll have to stop by before I leave. I was in town for a minor miracle."

That explained why Eliot has failed so spectacularly. "Tell you what. Come join me."

Quentin tilted his head in consideration. "I'm tempted. I mean," he started, "not that kind of- unless you-"

"Relax, Q, I wouldn't do that to you." And he meant it too. He'd probably get a promotion if he successfully tempted an angel, but Eliot wouldn't try that on Quentin. He...liked his presence. Generally. "C'mon, angel, let's get some lunch. My treat. I do have a little idea for us to discuss."

 

For hundreds and thousands of years, the Arrangement went on. Quentin and Eliot would compare notes about their assignments from Above and Below, then flip a coin to decide who would take both of their tasks on while the other got to take some time off. Eliot spent his discovering all manner of alcohol and pleasure of the flesh. Quentin, as far as Eliot could tell, really came into his own once the printing press was invented. They would meet up for lunch somewhere, trade off their duties and go their separate ways. No muss, no fuss.

Until Quentin's invitation to visit his newly opened bookshop was returned with a note saying the addressee had gone abroad. Quentin closed his eyes and reached out across the world until he felt Eliot's demonic presence. It used to burn when he'd grope for Eliot's soul, not it was like a warm fire. He found Eliot In France. Where a bloody (and he meant that in every way) revolution was going on. "Oh," Quentin said as he miracled himself into the Bastille, "hell."

"Hello to you too, Quentin," Eliot said, raising his manacled hands in a wave.

Quentin snapped his fingers so time (and the cheerful executioner's monologue) stopped. "What are you playing at? Why are you here? Now? Why are you dressed like that?"

Eliot tugged at his stylish cravat. "I have standards."

"Standards that almost got your head chopped off. What are you even doing here?" Quentin snapped again and Eliot's shackles dropped open. He paused. "Did you do all this?"

"Nope," Eliot stressed. "Humans thought up the head removal machine all by themselves. I was just here for some crepes. They only properly make them over here, you know."

Quentin stared. "I'm sorry, some crepes? You came to Paris, dressed like a lord, in the middle of the French Revolution because you wanted a snack!" He sighed from the depths of his weary, weary soul. "Why didn't you just miracle yourself out of here?"

Eliot pursed his lips. "Fogg told me off for too much "frivolity". Apparently, I need to 'learn a lesson'." He winced. Discorporation, since neither angels nor demons really die, was an administrative hassle and there was no guarantee his next body would be as pretty as the one he currently had. Or as tall.

Quentin shook his head and waved a hand so that the executioner now wore Eliot's fine clothes and Eliot had his patriotic costume.

"If I must," Eliot sighed and held out his elbow towards Quentin. "C'mon, angel, let me repay you with lunch. Fancy some crepes?"

Quentin took the offered arm and tried to hide his smile as he did so. It wouldn't do for Eliot to figure out just how much Quentin... liked him. 

 

It was two hundred years (and one truly horrendous fight in Central Park, in which Eliot requested holy water, Quentin freaked out and called their friendship a fraternization and they haven't spoken since. Eliot slept through most of the rest of the 18th century in a snit)

Eliot eyed the church from his place just before the threshold. He and Quentin still weren't speaking, but he'd heard about a floppy-haired fool apparently selling some prophecy books to Nazis in London and he was there before his next breath. It took almost no probing to discover Quentin or "Mr. Coldwater" (Crowley still thought the surname was idiotic) was going to be double-crossed and killed this very night. In this very church.

Eliot didn't have to go in. He could let Quentin be discorporated and just wait until he was back on Earth. If they sent him back. They had to send him back, didn't they? Churches were consecrated ground and to Eliot's demonic feet it would be like walking across a hot bed of coals with every step. He didn't have to go inside. Eliot wavered until he saw a woman slipping through the shadows into a side entrance of the church. The very woman who had smiled and batted her eyelashes at Quentin until he didn't hear the lie under her words.

Without another seconds hesitation, Eliot sent a miraculous change of course to a German bomber plane and stepped into the church.

He cursed the whole way up the aisle. "Consecrated ground." He groaned as he approached Quentin. And some Nazis, but Quentin was the only being that mattered. In the whole world. And Eliot needed to stop these thoughts right now because Quentin certainly didn't need to know how much Eliot...liked him. "It's like being barefoot on hot sand. Fuuuuuuck."

Quentin frowned, unconcerned about the gun pointed at his head by the traitorous woman and her associates. Oh, Eliot was going to enjoy her death most of all. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you, dumbass," Eliot frowned as he leaned his weight against a pew.

"Mr. Waugh," the woman smiled in a way she probably thought was snake-like. As Eliot could literally turn into a snake, he knew it was just a smile. "Your fame proceeds you. A pity you must both die."

"Waugh?" Quentin asked, tilting his head at Eliot.

Eliot shrugged. "Borrowed it from this writer I know. He's working on a brilliant book about homoeroticism."

Quentin blushed but pasted a frown on his face anyway. "Is this your doing?" He gestured to the Nazis and presumably the second World War in gegeneral.

"Why do you always assume the worst?" Eliot pouted. "No, these morons are their own humans. And," he addressed said morons, "they are going to die in about a minute unless they drop the gun and run the fuck away right now. There's a bomber about to obileterate this church."

"Ha," the woman said, "the bombs tonight fall on the East End."

Eliot smiled even as he switched feet to rest his weight on. "Unless there was a last minute demonic miracle that altered that." He shrugged. "I'm fine if you waste your running away time. I'm hoping you get blown up. However," he turned to Quentin, "I am also hoping a miracle manages to make it so my friend and I survive it."

Quentin smiled softly at Eliot. "Friend?"

"Friendship is more accurate than fraternization," Eliot said, the closest he could come to an apology.

The bombs whistled overhead and he smiled as they fell.

Quentin stood choking in the aftermath as Eliot wiped the soot off his sunglasses. "The books!" Quentin exclaimed. "Oh, I forgot the books! They'll be nothing but ashes by-" he cut off as Eliot held out the suitcase of books that Quentin was referring to.

"A little miracle of my own," he said, turning his face away so Quentin wouldn't see the way Eliot was looking at him. "C'mon, angel. If we're gonna be in London, we're not going home until we've had the greasiest fish and chips we can stomach."

If Eliot had kept his eyes on Quentin, he could have pinpointed the exact second that Quentin, looking from the books to Eliot's retreating figure, fell in love with him.

Eliot had fallen in love back in Rome when Quentin smiled at him for the very first time.

Too bad it would take 75 years and an almost Apocalypse for them to admit it. But they'll get there in the end. True Love always does.


End file.
